The Chorus of the Forest 



was the music of my o\\'ii heart over some won- 

 drous flower or landscape picture, or stirred to join 

 in the diorus around me. The trees were larye 

 wind-harps, the trunks the framework, the hranches 

 the strings. These triniks always were wrajjped in 

 gray, but with each tree a differing sliade. Tliere 

 Avere brown-gray, green-gray, blue-gray, dark- 

 gray, light-gray, every imaginable gray, and many 

 of them so vine-entwined and lichen-decorated it 

 was difficult to tell exactly what color they were. 

 The hickory was the tatterdemalion; no other 

 tree Avas so rough and ragged in its covering. 

 Oak, elm, walnut, and ash, A\]iile dee])ly indented 

 with the breaks of growtli, had more even surface. 

 The pojilar, birch, and sycamore had the smooth- 

 est bark and showed the most color. The tall, 

 straight birch did gleam "like siher," but to me 

 the sycamore Avas more beautiful. The largest 

 Avere of amazing size, Avhole brandies a cream-Avliite 

 Avith big patches of green, and the rough ])ark of 

 the trunks Avas a dirty yellow-gray. These trees 

 ahvays shoAV most color in Avinter, but I do not 

 knoAv AA'hether tliey really are brighter then, or 

 AA'hether the absence of the green leaA^es makes 

 them a})pear so. Anywhere near the riA-er the 

 trees grcAA- larger, and their uplifted branches 

 caught the air and made louder music, AA'hile the 

 vniceasing song of the Avater played a minor accom- 

 paniment. These big Avind-harps Avere standing 



39 



